What I Carry

by Jennifer Longo

  I held them to me and skulked around the aisles. Had anyone else seen them? Maybe I could wear them to a dance. Maybe I would wrap them in tissue, save them for if I ever got married one day. My whole month’s allowance for one pair of shoes I would never wear, but, oh, perfect diamonds-in-the-rough of off-brand Crocs, skanky worn-out running shoes, and dirty Converse, beautiful and perfect and waiting to be found by me.

  Or maybe not.

  Too good to be true.

  Someone bought these shoes brand-new for a crap ton of money, and then changed their mind and dumped them here. Why?

  Blisters? They trip you up and let you fall? If these shoes truly were so special, so good, they would not still be here, waiting for me to find them. Someone who deserved them, who knew their true worth and had reasons to wear them, would have found them and taken them home by now. It was too good to be true.

  I put them back on the shelf but kept and carried the paper price tag with the rest of the blackbird nest. Most nights when I can’t sleep, I lie staring into the dark and think about those shoes.

  * * *

  I was honing my avoidance skills like a petulant first grader and feeling more sorry for, and sick of, myself every minute.

  I was tired. I’d managed to not interact with Francine the night before and woken up to a note from her about an early-morning doctor appointment, my lunch made and waiting in the fridge, and five voice mails from Joellen that I was choosing to ignore. They were there on the phone, her voice probably waiting to tell me I should let Francine adopt me, and why wasn’t this my dream in life, and what was wrong with me, why couldn’t I just give in.

  Once at Salishwood, early, I checked in with Jane and then literally hid in the trees, atop the granite boulder, to avoid talking to Sean. The buses pulled in, and then:

  “Muiriel!” Zola came running and scrambled up the boulder to me.

  “Zola! What is up, miss?”

  She held on tight as always but was unusually quiet. I left her alone about her mom, asked her nothing about where she was living.

  “Should we go look for fox poop?” I said instead.

  I held her hand, and we walked to meet the rest of the kids at the trail. Spring was finally warming into summer. Deer and rabbits and snakes were out and about in the forest. Rain left the soil and trees and seawater clean and alive, a relief to breathe it all in. Sean led the hike and left me alone to be the jerk I insisted on being. I let myself be occupied with the forest and with Zola all the way into the woods and back out, until we came into the clearing at the lodge, and Zola dropped my hand to wave at someone small with unruly, curly hair who was talking to Jane.

  “Muir,” Zola squealed, “look! Why is she here?”

  “Don’t know.” Zola waved and ran to her, and Joellen turned and saw me, and she smiled. All my life until this island, the only person in the world always happy to see me come into a room. I walked fast to her, didn’t pretend to not be happy. Zola turned actual cartwheels in the grass.

  “Joellen, watch me!” she yelled.

  “Whoa,” Joellen laughed when I threw my arms around her. “Are you hugging now?”

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. “Do you have another kid on the island? Sorry I didn’t listen to your messages yet. Can we have lunch before you go? We could go to Blackbird and get toast. Francine’s at a doctor appointment, but she’ll be back. What are you doing here, why didn’t you tell me you were coming…” Joellen’s smile was fading fast, and I finally saw she was not alone.

  A uniformed officer stood behind her, near her.

  “Oh God,” I whispered, “what is it?” She pulled me aside.

  “It’s—it’ll be fine,” she said. “He just needs to ask some questions….It’ll be all right. Call me when you’re home, and I’ll come by on my way off the island, okay? Muir? Okay?”

  “Jo. Who is he here for?”

  “Honey, please don’t worry, call me later.” She squeezed my hand and walked back to Jane and the cop.

  I turned myself around in a cold panic. Where was he; where had he gone—

  “Muir.” Sean. Beside me. “What’s with…is that a cop?”

  Just when I needed him, exactly where I wished he was. Again.

  “I guess,” I said. “What is he—city? Sheriff?”

  “How would I know?”

  “Is it about Natan?” I whispered, hoarse. “Did he press charges for assault? Am I going to jail?”

  “No! What are you— Who’s your friend with the hair?”

  “My social worker.”

  His eyes were wide. “Joellen? Crap…it’s like meeting my in-laws.” I did not return his smile. “Catch me up here—she didn’t tell you she was coming?”

  “No. I can’t believe this is happening. I’m going to jail.”

  “Why would you even— Muir, you are not going to jail. Just hold on.”

  Exactly what I needed him to say.

  We stood and watched Joellen talk to the cop, then Joellen went to Zola, still turning cartwheels in the grass. Thank God, I thought. Comfort the poor kid. Those are probably anxiety cartwheels.

  Then she took Zola’s hand and led her to the cop.

  “What the—what is she doing?”

  Sean and I sat on the wooden picnic bench and watched Joellen kneel beside Zola, who nodded and shook her head at the cop’s questions.

  “Wait,” I moaned. “Someone is dead. Her mom. Oh God, Zola.” I couldn’t stand it. I went to her and stood behind her and Joellen.

  “Muiriel, honey—”

  Zola’s head whipped around to me, her eyes pleading. “Muir, I didn’t do it. Tell them I didn’t.”

  “Is someone dead?” I whispered to Joellen.

  “No,” she said, full voice.

  I turned to Zola. “Honey, what didn’t you do?”

  “Miss, I’m going to have to ask you to step back, please,” the cop said, and stepped nearer to Zola.

  I could see his badge. Seattle Police.

  “She says I stole something,” Zola said, pulling my arm. “Jewelry, a bracelet or something. I never took anything— Muir, help me.”

  Time slowed to zero.

  What did you do to get put in foster care? She doesn’t know how good she’s got it. They all steal.

  “Miss,” the cop said to Zola. “We’re talking to you right now, and only you.”

  “Who said that, Zola?” I asked her. “Who said you stole something?”

  Sean was beside me again. “What is it?”

  “Joellen, tell them!” I turned to the cop. “This child does not steal; she never would.”

  “Miss, I’m going to need you to back up.”

  “She just fucking told you she didn’t steal anything, didn’t you hear her?”

  “Muir,” Joellen gasped. I nearly did, too. Had I just said fuck to a police officer? My breath was shallow. Surrounded by people, outside in the sunshine, still I was terrified. But Zola.

  Francine’s voice was in my head. Your word is proof.

  “What house is it?” I asked.

  “I can’t give you that informat—”

  “Our house,” Zola said. “The one you and I lived in. I’m with my grandma now; I haven’t lived at that house in such a long time. I didn’t take anything!”

  Oh, god. The police-happy Allen wrench house.

  “Joellen,” I said. “You know that woman. Whatever she’s missing, she probably lost it, or she’s wearing it right now.”

  “Muir,” Joellen sighed. “Please, just let him do his job.”

  I turned to the officer, a bland-faced, fully uniformed white guy who looked not much older than me, gun in a holster on his hip. He got on a ferry to come to this island and interrupt a class field trip, to take down a ten-year-old black girl for a
petty theft she didn’t commit, accused by a crabby white lady who couldn’t be bothered to put Zola’s once-a-week swim class on her calendar, who called me a “bad penny” when all I did was keep her house clean and help her remember to take her stupid hypertension medication, because she had the world’s worst memory.

  “That woman we lived with, she once spent half an hour searching her car for her phone—using her phone flashlight.”

  The cop nodded. “My mom’s done stuff like that.” He offered me his hand to shake. “Officer Irvin.”

  I nodded but did not touch his hand.

  “Okay,” I said. “Now picture a sixty-year-old woman with four foster kids in rotation who does that shit on the regular. Tell her to look for whatever she’s missing in the sofa cushions: that’s where she keeps the TV remote and most of her important tax documents. Zola didn’t take anything from that house; she just wanted to get out of there and go home.”

  “Can I?” Zola asked. “Can I go home now?” She watched the rest of the kids lined up to get back on the school buses.

  “What can I do?” Sean whispered near my ear.

  I could not watch this happen. Zola was too young; they were going to ruin everything for her. “Jo,” I said, low, “what did she say Zola took?”

  “Bracelet,” Jo whispered. “Gold.”

  Zola stood beside Joellen, holding her hand. Terrified.

  Blood thundered in my ears.

  “Sean,” I said, “take my phone. Call Francine. Tell her to come home. Tell her I stole a gold bracelet from a foster house and there’s a police officer here to search my room. Tell her I need her.”

  They all stared and said nothing. Joellen, Jane, the cop.

  Zola.

  My whole life of careful perfection, my future, gone—and I couldn’t have cared less.

  I USED MY KEY AND OPENED the door. Terry Johnson got a whiff of the cop and nearly twisted himself into a pretzel, barking and nipping at him. I picked the dog up and lifted his ear to whisper please, calm down. He wiggled and whined, but I held him tight. Poor Francine. All I ever brought her was trouble. Now a cop was in her house, and she wasn’t home. Was this even legal?

  Zola still clung to Joellen. Sean was gone; he’d convinced Jane to take him home for his mom’s car, and he went looking for Francine, who was not answering her phone. I grabbed the grocery pad from the fridge and raced to scribble out a list.

  “Miss,” the officer said, hovering at the bottom of the stairwell. “I need you to stop what you’re doing and—”

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then hold on.” I could not believe the words coming out of my mouth. To a cop. Neither could Zola. Or Joellen. They sat nervously together at the kitchen table, and my terrified lungs refused to let me get a full breath.

  “Muir,” Joellen whisper-begged. “Don’t do this to yourself. Let him go through the motions. Just do what he asks, we’ll clear it up, and it’ll be over.”

  I didn’t believe that for a second, and it pissed me off that Joellen did—and that for the first time, the very worst time when I needed her most, she was scared. She was supposed to be in charge; she didn’t get to be scared. I slapped the list I’d written on the table in front of her, and, Terry Johnson still tucked under my left arm, I got Zola some crackers and juice. “Don’t worry,” I whispered to her. “Everything is going to be all right. Do you trust me?”

  She nodded.

  “Good. I trust you, too.” I spoke near Joellen’s ear. “Call her. Call that woman right now and tell her to check every one of the places I’ve written here. Tell her I said to try. She’ll find her fucking bracelet.”

  She looked up at me—her fear shifted to join my anger. Thank God.

  I stood tall as I could, and faced the cop. My stomach turned at this scene, Zola surrounded by all of this stupidity, my anger and protection of her coming off horribly white-savior-y, but fuck. Zola was a child. She needed to see herself in me, in another foster kid taking charge, not being helpless. Because adults were failing her. Again.

  “Let’s go,” I said, pretending hard I wasn’t terrified, and started up the stairs.

  But there was a knock at the open front door. “Muiriel,” a voice called. “What’s happening?” Kira’s mom. And Kira, in her Blackbird apron. And Sean.

  Kira’s mom strode in, assessed the situation, came straight to me, her arm around me holding Terry Johnson. “Tell me what to do,” she said, glaring at Cop Irvin. I shook my head. “What’s happening?” she asked Joellen. “What do they want with Muiriel?”

  I exhaled. I was safe now. Sean and Kira stood beside me. My people. My people’s mom, assuming not the worst of me but that I was being wronged. Here to protect me. Zola smiled up at Sean with a tiny bit of hope.

  “What the actual F?” Kira whispered.

  “I don’t know,” I whispered back. “But you’re here. So it’s going to be okay.”

  “We just need to let this officer take a look in Muiriel’s room,” Joellen said. “It won’t take but a minute.” Her words were calm, disjointed from their anxious, high-pitched delivery.

  NCIS island justice. I could not believe this was happening.

  “Does he have a warrant?” Kira’s mom asked, moving to anchor safely at Zola’s side.

  “Seriously, what the shit is going on?” Kira asked, low.

  I spoke quietly. “They think Zola stole something from one of our placements, because a white lady says she did, which Zola abso-fucking-lutely did not; I’m buying time for Joellen to clear it up.”

  Kira seethed. Sean was stone-faced.

  My stomach burned, but I could not let them do this to Zola. I would not.

  Then a sickening moment of realization:

  The striped pillowcase. My blackbird bag of treasures. All of it stolen. John Muir was right all along: I should have kept nothing, no attachment to things. Carrying those worthless things really was going to ruin me.

  Zola looked through the chaos to me. Kira’s mom took her hand.

  “Hold on, Zola, we are going to fix this together, all of us” I said. “Stay here with Kira’s mom. Joellen, call that woman.”

  She picked up Francine’s landline.

  Sean took my shaking hand for a second, then I held tight to Terry Johnson and started up the stairs to my room. “It’s up here,” I said to Cop Irvin, who hurried to follow me, with Kira and Sean right behind him.

  “Muir, you don’t have to do this,” Kira’s mom called up the stairwell. “I wish you wouldn’t. We should wait for Francine.”

  “Mom, she’s got it,” Kira yelled back to her.

  I set Terry Johnson on the perfectly made bed. Everyone crowded around in the room that seemed much smaller now.

  “Wait, hold up!” There was another voice in the kitchen, pounding feet on the stairs, and then Elliot stood with us in the room, breathing hard, his camera safely, perpetually in his hands.

  Amazing.

  “This is unacceptable,” Cop Irvin said.

  “I’m just here to document,” Elliot said. “Seriously, pretend I’m not here. Go. Muir, I got you.”

  Kira smiled.

  I went to the dresser.

  Please, Joellen. Do not let me down.

  I moved and spoke as slowly as I could, buying Joellen as much time as possible, while still in total disbelief that any of it was happening in the first place. We were all starring in a filler episode of Dateline where the producers forgot there was supposed to be a crime and instead booked an overwrought, forgetful lady being peak white at Zola’s expense.

  “Let’s see…gold bracelet…okay, well, these are my three books. And here,” I said, my voice small and scared to death, “have a look in the drawers. There are eight shirts, five pairs of socks, three pairs of p
ants, and two skirts. Kira helped me find those because I wanted to look pretty for a boy I like.” Sean looked like he was about to cry. Elliot took pictures of the drawers. Of me. Of the cop. Of the room full of people around me: Portrait of the World’s Most Boring Crime Scene. “Shoes I sometimes keep under the bed. I have three pairs. Write that down—are you writing it all down?” Cop Irvin shined a flashlight into the drawers, moved things aside.

  And then, out of all other options, I hefted my suitcase to the bed. “This will just be some more T-shirts and my toiletry kit. Some things from the kit are in the bathroom, but most of it is in here. Toothpaste, tampons, you can take it all with you to the station; it’s all I’ve got.”

  Downstairs, one more voice. Terry Johnson barked. Sean picked him up and whispered something into the top of his scruffy head. Terry growled but let Sean hold him.

  Footsteps on the attic stairs, and Francine stood in the doorway, small in her jeans and sweater, her eyes first to me, then to Cop Irvin, his hands on my suitcase to open it.

  “Don’t touch that suitcase,” she said.

  “Ma’am, I’m Officer Irvin. And you are?”

  “I am Muiriel’s mother.”

  “Foster,” I said reflexively.

  “Foster mother,” she said, and came to me. “Sweetheart, are you okay?”

  I nodded. “But please don’t leave.”

  “Of course not,” she said, then she turned Cop Irvin. “What is going on here? What information could you possibly need from this girl?”

  “This young lady says she’s in possession of stolen property, so I am conducting an investigation. Just doing my job, ma’am.”

  “So am I. You listen to me,” she said. “You cannot separate your actions from their context. This child is not a thief. Zola is a baby. She is not a thief. I want you out of my house. Now.”

  Warmth flooded my hands and heart. “It’s all right, Francine,” I said. “Everything will turn out right.”

  Cop Irvin opened my suitcase, pulled the blackbird bag of useless crap from its place beside my shoes, and emptied it onto the beautiful handmade quilt. A quilt for a kid in foster care.